200 Park
San Jose, California
BEST PROJECT, OFFICE/RETAIL/MIXED USE
KEY PLAYERS
Sent by: Level 10 build
Owner: Jay Paul Co.
Main design company: executioner
General contractor: Level 10 build
Civil Engineer: Kier & Wright Civil Engineers & Surveyors Inc.
Structural Engineer: Magnusson Klemencic Associates
MEP Engineer: Critchfield Mechanical Inc.
Electrical Engineer: Redwood Electric Group
Plumbing Engineer: ACCO engineering systems
Structural steel fabricator/erector: Schuff Steel
The 300-foot-tall commercial office complex 200 Park in San Jose, California is only the second tower built using the SpeedCore Concrete Composite Steel Plate Shear Wall System.
ENR’s Best Projects judges were impressed by the team’s ability to carry out a four-story excavation in a tight urban environment, as well as the crews working in parallel and their use of SpeedCore to help save time. The judges also admired the inclusion of convertible stacker parking levels and design elements such as unique outdoor spaces on all levels, with one calling it a “visually appealing building”.
Casey Kraning, director of real estate development for the owner, Jay Paul Co., agrees with the judges. He says the company is “very proud” of the end result.
“Having the opportunity to bring together transformational engineering methods, forward-thinking sustainability features, and activation elements throughout the venue is something we’re really excited to bring to the market and downtown San Jose,” says Kraning .
The ground floor of 200 Park has 2,000 square feet of retail space, and the top three floors can be converted from parking to additional office space, depending on demand.
Photo by Jason O’Rear
The 19-story building, which is the tallest in San Jose, has a total of nearly 1.4 million square feet. It includes four levels of underground parking, and the first three floors above the lobby are stacked parking that can be converted into more office space. Its floor plates average 54,000 square feet, allowing for a variety of tenant configurations. The design includes cut-outs dubbed “solar canyons” that allow natural light deeper into the building’s interior. Each floor has three terraces on different sides of the building, totaling 26,000 square meters, allowing for flexible work “neighborhoods” that have access to the outside space. The building also has 2,000 square meters of ground-level retail space and a 19,000 square meter gym for tenants.
The outer skin is made primarily of glass and embossed stainless steel panels made in Italy by Outokumpu. The window-to-wall ratio is different on each face depending on the orientation of the building, so the north facade is more transparent while the south and west are more opaque. These options were also meant to achieve the highest possible envelope performance, and the team says 200 Park was built to meet LEED Gold BD+C new construction requirements, as well as Fitwel certification.
Work began in January 2020 and was completed one month ahead of schedule and under budget in May 2023.
The building has three terraces on each floor, with a total of 26,000 square meters. As a result, all flexible office spaces have access to fresh air and natural light.
Photo by Jason O’Rear
Basic options
Early in the design, structural engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) presented three options: a traditional concrete core with a suspended gravity frame, a hybrid option using a braced frame with reinforced columns and steel cladding, or SpeedCore after its first use at 850 feet. -the tall Rainier Square tower in Seattle.
SpeedCore uses a panel system consisting of steel plates with cross-connecting braces. After being placed, the panels are filled with concrete and more panels are stacked. Ron Klemencic, CEO and President of MKA, led the development of the technique.
After completing the project, Kevin Englund, vice president of operations for general contractor Level 10 Construction, says he would use the system again.
“MKA is probably one of the best engineers I’ve worked with in my career – a very sharp group.”
—Kevin Englund, vice president of operations, Level 10 Construction
“I was really impressed,” he says of SpeedCore. “I think at the end of the day, you look at all the time you take out of the field in terms of formwork, concrete placement and rebar with a traditional core. And you can put it all in one store where it’s more controlled, generally safer and less likely to fall, and putting it all in a modular system is a benefit all around.”
The project team established a guaranteed maximum price before completing design and procurement, and Englund says calculating all the items showed savings in money and time by using SpeedCore. But, he adds, SpeedCore may not apply so well to all projects, depending on their geometries.
“It just has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” says Englund. “And MKA is probably one of the best engineers I’ve worked with in my career – a very sharp group.”
With SpeedCore, level 10 was able to build four floors in a week, compared to one floor every three to five days using traditional building methods. Additionally, the panels were prefabricated in an off-site shop, which limited on-site work and helped with safety and speed. The system also reduced core wall thickness by around 20% compared to cast-in-place concrete, resulting in more rentable space for the owner.
“By selecting this system early and designing around it, we were able to eliminate some other unknowns along the way that could have been cost risks for us,” says Englund.
With building performance and tenant well-being in mind, 200 Park was designed to meet LEED Gold BD+C New Construction and Fitwel certification requirements.
Photo by Jason O’Rear
Being a relatively new system, the building design required a third-party review by geotechnical and structural engineers for city approval. Finding a steel fabricator and contractor to work with the SpeedCore elements was no problem; Englund says they received pitches from five or six potential subcontractors, so the novelty of SpeedCore wasn’t an issue when assembling the team.
“When selecting [the SpeedCore] system early and by designing around it, we were able to eliminate some other unknowns along the way that could have been a cost risk for us.”
—Kevin Englund, vice president of operations, Level 10 Construction
To prepare for the implementation of SpeedCore, Level 10 was able to question MKA engineers and contractors on the Rainier Square project about what went well and what they would have done differently (ENR 2/21-28/22 p . 22). The 200 Park team then built a full-scale mock-up of a SpeedCore unit complete with concrete grout placement to ensure they could achieve smooth cell filling.
When using SpeedCore again, Englund says he’d like to spend more time looking at media loads and build methods. Schuff Steel, the structural steel fabricator and erector, worked with erection stability engineer Simpson Gumpertz & Heger to develop a plan taking into account the staging of its materials and equipment, the loads elevation and the support points of the tower crane, he says. Tower crane loading required additional steel in the floor diaphragms to transfer the perimeter load to the steel core members. The plan also included additional stiffening of the core by internal bracing at connected floor levels to introduce loads to the primary lateral restraint members.
Schuff added internal side reinforcements to the SpeedCore panels for the trucks to protect against deformation on the road. This helped to keep them more rigid before being grouted and had the added benefit of providing crane pickup points.
While SpeedCore helped speed up the work, the project still faced challenges. Early on, during the cutter soil mix wall work for the basement in 2020, the county required a work break due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two months later, Level 10 was able to resume self-execution of cast-in-place formwork with Joseph J. Albanese Inc. handling the concrete.
The cut-outs on each side of the building allow natural light to reach the interior, while the more opaque facades on the south and west sides dampen the intense sunlight.
Best California Projects 2024
Challenging excavation
The San Jose area has relatively high water tables, only 15-20 feet at 200 Park, where the team was digging about 75 feet down. When drilling the sleepers at the lower levels, there was a lot of water entering the excavation that the contractor managed, treated and removed. Malcolm Drilling made sure they had drilling equipment on standby at the site so no time was lost while the team worked through the excavation due to equipment issues, Englund says. They ran two support rigs for most of the process to speed up the work. The team also sequenced the work to minimize any non-productive time in the excavation process. Englund says they were almost back on schedule when they started erecting steel.
Work completed with zero lost-time accidents, according to Level 10. Englund says the contractor has worked more than 9.5 million hours since its foundation without a single lost-time injury.
Using SpeedCore allowed crews to build four floors per week, compared to one floor every three to five days if they had used traditional construction methods.
Photo by Jason O’Rear
“It’s really a core element of the company,” he says.
The contractor conducted a site-specific safety orientation led by the project safety manager to review requirements and protocols with everyone working on site. They put controls in place, such as CalOSHA-compliant rail guards, cable rails and toe boards at the opening and leading edges. And the safety manager led all-hands safety meetings and addressed safety at weekly foremen’s meetings throughout the project. Also, before work even begins, Englund says Level 10 is checking potential subs’ experience modification ratings as part of prequalification.
“So safety really goes through all phases of the work, from pre-construction to procurement and construction activities,” he says.
